#5: Jezebel (1938)
In Jezebel, Davis wore the problematic red dress to a formal Southern ball where everyone else was dressed in white. On black-and-white film, the color had to be sold through reaction, posture, and Davis’s defiant stillness. She made social disgrace look like a coronation. The role won her a second Oscar and gave audiences a perfect Davis image: a woman punished for refusing to behave and still impossible to look away from.
